A wave of terror attacks rocked three continents and left dozens dead on Friday, leaving the world reeling and authorities scrambling to apprehend the attackers.

In Tunisia, a gunman shot at least 37 people dead on a beach in the resort town of Sousse before he was killed by Tunisian security forces.

An attacker in France caused an explosion by plowing his car into a gas factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier. A severed head was found staked at the factory entrance, in what authorities described as a terrorist attack.

And in Kuwait City, Kuwait, a suicide bomber walked into Imam Sadiq Mosque, a Shiite mosque crowded with worshippers during Friday prayers, and blew himself up. At least 25 people were killed and over 200 were injured in the attack.

There was no indication of a direct link between Friday’s three attacks. The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the one in Kuwait — the first such attack on a Shiite place of worship in that country. Earlier this week, the group released an audio message urging followers to intensify attacks during the holy month of Ramadan.

When we met her in a tea house in Bardo, we could hardly bring ourselves to ask where she’s from. That’s because Saadia Mosbah is the head of the group M’nemty – “Where Are You From?”– which fights racial discrimination.

After 15 minutes of sipping hot chocolate, which Saadia filled with an irreverent joke or two, we finally ask the question that was causing such anxiety.

“I was born in Bab Souika [Tunisia], my father is from Téboulba, and my ancestors from my father’s side would have originally been from Timbuktu, in Mali,” Saadia says, all smiles. No, the question doesn’t annoy her. “It is important to know your origins.”

The Weight of History

Her father had always wanted to know where he came from. Confined as a child to working in the field to help his mother, he would watch the classroom of his local school through the window. Thanks to an attentive teacher, he was eventually welcomed into the class and discovered his love for history.

He transmitted this passion for history to his children. Saadia is inexhaustible. Her head is full of stories from the past. She enthusiastically explains how, long ago, the black communities of South Tunisia used to raise goats, camels, and sheep, from which they would gather wool and fur to weave their tents (called ghrara). She also explained how slavery, officially abolished in 1846, actually continued in the South until 1890. “And until today in Jerba,” she added.

Even if “slavery” today is no longer the same as it was, some industries on the tourist resort island of Jerba, notably the pastry industry, take on the same black families for generations, Saadia said. “They always call them ‘Ousifi’- ‘my negro.’ It is inconceivable that they would work anywhere else.”

“What do you mean, racism?”

But underlying this heritage of slavery, and obscuring it, is the denial of racism in Tunisia. “Nobody ever talks about it,” she says.

Before the Tunisian revolution of 2011, she tried to launch her organization twice. The government then in power told her, “What are you talking about? That doesn’t exist. You are welcome guests here.” Tolerance is not what Saadia wants. She is not a “welcome guest”: she is home, and she wants a diverse and equal Tunisia.

Listening to her, you can’t stop yourself from thinking that this dream is a long way from coming true. As a flight attendant for the nationally-owned Tunisair for 30 years, and now as the chief flight attendant for the airline, she has had to face the ignorance of passengers and, to a lesser extent, her colleagues.

The stories are almost funny. “When we do return flights to Tunis, certain passengers who see me welcome them at the entrance ask if we are really going to Tunis,” she says.

One time, in 1983, her chief flight attendant asked her to change positions and go work in the back of the plane because the CEO of Tunisair was on board. Another time, two of her colleagues didn’t want to fly with her. “It’s degrading to fly under the command of an ‘Ousifa,’” they said, using a derogatory term for a black woman.

Racism in Tunisia “is something silent, and rampant,” says Saadia. After the popular uprisings of 2011, during which the populace rose up and joined their voices against the government, she also wanted to make some noise.

There are six people who take care of managing “M’Nemty,” Saadia’s organization, and they are working to raise awareness amongst the population, especially the children, because they believe that’s where the fight must start.

“After the game, they talked about skin color”

Another struggle is the promotion of black Tunisians. There are no black governmental officials in Tunisia, and only one deputy parliamentarian in the national assembly, Jamila Ksiksi.

Saadia and her peers with “M’nemty” approached Ksiksi, the nation’s sole black parliamentary official, in order to get her to discuss this problem of representation with the entire assembly and give recognition to their cause. Saadia laments, “After the match, I thought that Tunisians were going to talk about corruption, but instead they talked about skin color.”

Skilled in word games and political speech, Saadia says she tries not to “see everything in black.” But she would like black Tunisians to mobilize, even if she thinks they are ashamed to openly expose the problem, out of fear of being treated as different. “They don’t want to be seen as a minority. However, we perfectly fit that definition.”

She said it’s also impossible to get statistics on the country’s demographics. The government counted the Jewish population, they counted the Christians. But not the blacks–or the Amazighs (a local indigenous minority), either.

Saadia would like to see the numbers, if only to have serious evidence. But for now, the cafe rings with her laughter.

On the table, drops of hot chocolate boil over the edge of the white teapot. Saadia says mischievously: “It only makes the white more beautiful, no?”

This piece was originally published on HuffPost Maghreband was translated into English.

TUNIS, Jan 27 (Reuters) – President Moncef Marzouki and the head of the National Assembly signed Tunisia’s new constitution on Monday, enshrining one of its last steps toward full democracy after a 2011 uprising that inspired the Arab Spring.

After years of autocratic rule under Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s charter has been praised as one of the most progressive in the Arab world, designating Islam as the state religion but protecting freedom of belief and sexual equality.

Parliament erupted in celebration after the official signing of the constitution following its approval by assembly deputies on Sunday evening, which ended months of deadlock that had threatened to undo Tunisia’s transition.

“This is an exceptional day for Tunisia, where we celebrate the victory over dictatorship. The government and the opposition have won, Tunisia has won,” Marzouki said.

The small North African country’s steady progress contrasts sharply with continuing turmoil in neighbouring Libya and in Egypt, whose people followed Tunisia in ousting long-standing ruling strongmen in Arab Spring revolutions.

Tunisia’s stock market rose 1.7 percent on Monday in a sign of investor confidence in the country’s stability with the constitution in place and the formation of a new caretaker cabinet that will govern until elections.

After months of crisis, Tunisia’s transition got back on track when ruling Islamist party Ennahda agreed to compromise late last year and step down to make way for a technocrat government that will preside until the vote later this year.

Tunis — Tunisia voted Monday to enshrine gender equality in its draft constitution, a key step towards safeguarding its relatively progressive laws on women’s rights, with the ruling Islamists under pressure to compromise. “All male and female citizens have the same rights and duties. They are equal before the law without discrimination,” states article 20 of the text, which was approved by 159 lawmakers out of the 169 who voted.

The formula was agreed between the ruling Islamist party Ennahda and the secular opposition during negotiations to end months of political crisis that followed the assassination of an opposition politician by suspected jihadists last year. Ennahda sparked a storm of controversy in 2012 when it tried to introduce gender “complementarity” rather than equality into the post-uprising constitution.

Since the 1950s, when it gained independence from France, Tunisia has had the Arab world’s most progressive laws on women’s rights — although men remain privileged notably over inheritance — and some suspected Ennahda of wanting to roll back those rights.

The Islamists also agreed in recent months to drop their insistence on Islam being the main source of legislation, or criminalising “attacks on the sacred”.

Instead, Islam is recognised as the state religion and freedom of conscience is guaranteed.

On Sunday, the assembly also forced a successful revote on a proposed amendment that would make it unlawful to accuse someone of apostasy, after a deputy claimed he had received death threats because a colleague accused him of being an “enemy of Islam”.

Analysts say the ruling Islamist party has had to adapt its more conservative positions to avoid alienating liberal Tunisians.

“You could say that Ennahda has shown itself to be a modern movement, but also that it didn’t have a choice, because Tunisian society is modern and progressive,” said Sami Brahem, an expert on Islamic culture.

“If Ennahda wants to exercise power, it must be on the same page as this modernism, or else become a radical movement.”

For sociologist Tarek Belhadj Mohamed, “confronted by the campaigns of Tunisian women and civil society groups, they had to make concessions”.

Tight timetable set

Tunisia has set a tight timetable for adopting the long-delayed new charter of January 14, third anniversary of the overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in the popular revolt that sparked the Arab Spring.

Rights groups had expressed reservations about the article on gender equality, arguing that it was too vague and did not sufficiently articulate the prohibited grounds of discrimination.

But women’s rights activists in Tunisia welcomed the provisional approval of article 20.

“We wanted to add details that would ban discrimination based on sex or skin colour,” Ahlem Belhaj, former president of the Tunisian Association of Women Democrats, told AFP.

“But it is very good news that (gender) equality has been adopted. It was our demand and it’s a victory,” she added.

The national assembly also on Monday approved the article that guarantees “freedom of opinion, thought, expression and information”, and gave the green light to provisions safeguarding enforceable rights and proscribing torture.

These carry added significance in a country that only recently emerged from five decades of dictatorship.

Earlier, article 21 was approved which states that “the right to life is sacred” and “nothing can harm it except in certain extreme cases established by the law”.

The compromise was criticised for failing to abolish the death penalty, with a proposed amendment to do so rejected, although in practice no execution has been carried out since the 1990s.

Tunisia’s politicians have committed to adopting the draft charter — which must be approved by two-thirds of parliament’s 217 members or put to a referendum — by January 14.

Under an accord reached by the country’s divided political factions, the assembly must also pass an electoral law and set up a commission to oversee elections this year, whereupon outgoing Islamist premier Ali Larayedh has agreed to hand power to a transitional technocrat administration.

The powerful UGTT trade union, which has been mediating in the political crisis, is insisting that Larayedh step down by Thursday at the latest.